Family separation deal may give migrants second chance at asylum, and other nation and world news in brief

Tribune News Service

Friday

Sep 14, 2018 at 12:01 AM

Family separation deal may give migrants second chance at asylum

NEW YORK — The Trump administration and the American Civil Liberties Union struck a deal that will let many families separated at the southern U.S. border stay in the country and pursue asylum.

The ACLU has been seeking a long-term halt to the deportation of scores of immigrant parents and children who were separated as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. The U.S. had told a judge such a halt hinders the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Under the agreement reached overnight, some parents who have already been deported may be able to return to the U.S. to seek asylum, said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrant’s Rights Project.

“The Trump administration will never be able to erase the full damage of its family separation policy, but this agreement is an important step toward restoring and protecting the asylum rights of impacted children and parents going forward,” he said in a statement Thursday.

The deal must be approved by a judge, and the two sides are scheduled to be in court Friday for a hearing.

— Bloomberg News

Parents of boy who died in alligator attack at Disney have another son

ORLANDO, Fla. — The parents of Lane Graves, the boy who died in 2016 after he was pulled into the water by an alligator at a Disney resort, announced the birth of another son.

Matt and Melissa Graves named the boy Christian Lane Graves, who was born last week.

“Although we know the pain of losing Lane will never go away, we feel God has blessed our family with this precious miracle of life,” their statement said. “We know Ella and Christian have their brother, Lane, watching over them as their guardian angel.”

Lane, 2, was playing near the water on the beach at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa while on vacation with his family from Nebraska when an alligator pulled him into the water of Seven Seas Lagoon on June 14, 2016.

His father tried unsuccessfully to pull him out. Lane’s body was found the next day, and his death was ruled an accidental drowning.

Matt and Melissa Graves established The Lane Thomas Foundation to support families of children seeking an organ donation.

— Orlando Sentinel

Secret Service buying a Harley, despite Trump’s calls for boycott

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service is still buying Harley-Davidson motorcycles, even though President Donald Trump has supported a boycott of Harleys if the company moves some motorcycle production overseas.

The Secret Service posted its intention to purchase a single Harley-Davidson motorcycle, “brand name only, with police equipment accessories” earlier this week. The procurement solicitation paperwork was posted on a website for businesses that contract with the federal government.

Tension between the Trump and the Wisconsin-based bike manufacturer emerged earlier this year when Trump imposed hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in an effort to bolster domestic manufacturing. The European Union responded by pledging to raise tariffs on a list of goods that are imported from the United States, including Harley motorcycles.

Harley said in August that it stands to lose as much as $100 million a year, and the company pledged to shift some of its production abroad so that it could avoid the added tariffs on motorcycles sold in the EU.

That prompted Trump to stir talks of boycotting Harley-Davidson.

“Many @harleydavidson owners plan to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas. Great! Most other companies are coming in our direction, including Harley competitors. A really bad move! U.S. will soon have a level playing field, or better,” the president tweeted on Aug. 12.

Harley doesn’t sell motorcycles in the U.S. that are built overseas, and the company has said that won’t change.

Many federal law enforcement agencies use Harley-Davidsons, including the U.S. Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police and the United States Park Police. Capitol Police officers said Thursday that there are few alternatives for motorcycles equipped for police use, and most are foreign companies such as Honda, Yamaha and. Kawasaki.

— CQ-Roll Call

Aung San Suu Kyi defends jailing of journalists in Myanmar: ‘They have every right to appeal’

MUMBAI, India — Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday defended the imprisonment of two Reuters journalists who were investigating military attacks against Rohingya Muslims, saying the men were not punished for their reporting but because they broke the law.

“If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong, if they consider it wrong,” Suu Kyi told an audience at a World Economic Forum gathering in Vietnam.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner broke her silence in the closely watched case, which world leaders and human rights groups have described as an assault on freedom of expression and a further sign of declining democratic practices in a country emerging from a half-century of military rule.

Suu Kyi’s comments drew harsh criticism from human rights groups that argue she has been complicit in the military’s bloody, scorched-earth operations against the Rohingya people, more than 700,000 of whom have fled across the border into Bangladesh since August 2017.

The former democratic icon — who led the struggle against military rule in the country formerly known as Burma — has declined to criticize the army, which retains immense constitutional powers despite her party winning national elections in 2015.

Asked about the violence against the Rohingya, which some critics have compared to a genocide, Suu Kyi said that “the situation could have been handled better,” but said the military had acted “for the sake of long-term stability and security.”

The reporters with the Reuters international news agency — Myanmar nationals Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo — were reporting on an alleged massacre by Myanmar security forces in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state last year. The two found evidence that Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist villagers killed 10 Rohingya men execution-style and buried them in a mass grave in the village of Inn Din.

The journalists say they were set up by police officers who arranged a meeting to hand over official documents, then arrested them for violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act.

The journalists pleaded not guilty but were convicted and sentenced last week to seven years in jail. Their lawyers have said they will appeal the judgment.